Thursday, September 12, 2013

Family Not Shared vs Shared

This isn't about sharing things with others. This about the concept that Revit 7.0 provided to families in 2004. It presents itself to us in Family Category and Parameters dialog or just in the Properties Palette if nothing is selected.


Shared or Not Shared means nothing unless the family is then nested into another family. There is really no reason to make a family shared at all if it isn't going to be nested in another family.

Most content is Not Shared, not checked. You can nest families that are not shared and you will see them when the host or parent family is loaded into a project. You see them but they aren't really there, they are just symbols. Revit has not loaded the definition of the nested family(ies) into the project. You can confirm this by scanning through the list of families in the project browser, you won't find it there.

When a family is Shared, checked, something special happens when the host family is loaded into the project. The nested family is loaded into the project too. You'll find it IS in the Project Browser now. Since it is now "real" that means Revit can include the nested shared family(ies) in schedules. You can tag them too. You can use the 2014 Displace Elements on nested shared families too.

You can also place an instance of the nested family separately if desired. By the way, nested families, whether shared or not, "kill" temporary dimensions, they don't show up automatically when you select the family. You need to click the Activate Dimensions button (Options Bar) to get them to appear.

6 comments:

Mohammed Mahboob said...

Once the Shared option is checked and reloaded in project we cannot uncheck and reload them back, the decision has to be carefully taken.

Unknown said...

Very useful. Thanks!

Ryan K. said...

here's an interesting question: my pipe systems have certain colors assigned to them, so when a pipe connects to my family (which has a nested shared family in it, for tagging purposes) everything in the family inherits that pipe system's color/name EXCEPT the nested family. is there a way around this?

Marianne P said...

Hi Ryan. I know this is very old, but have you found a solution to the issue that shared families don't take system colors.
Regards Anton

Steve said...

Marianne, Don't know if Ryan will see this. I'm not aware of this issue, haven't noticed it myself and not aware of a solution.

Martin said...

@Mahboob You can just 'save as' under a different name and load the/that family into your project for a non-shared version. And then delete the old one, you really don't have to be all that careful...